A genomic history of the North Pontic Region from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age

[old europe]

Why did the early linguists suggest Germanic branched off from Usatovo? Any particular reason for that, or it was just a wild guess/guesstimate?

Because doesn't look like the case at all, unless more Usatovo samples are in line.

Because they tought Usatovo was ancestral to CWC in northern Europe

[Jaska]

Alanarchae:

That's likely true but there is a 1000-2000 year period between that moment and evidence or even inference of its presence where it survived - Anatolia..  The prop date of the proto language of the recorded Anatolian branched is 3000-2500BC r that is obvious not the same as the branching off even which was likely a bit earlier. The big question in my mind has always been this - how did Anatolian avoid the kind of contact that shifted all the other branches to later fully formed PIE by e3300BC if not a few cevturies earlier. It must have found an isolated location from the rest..  It had a long period that it could have been in an intermediate location. And those steppe groups couod really travel vast distances when you look at the waves

Yes, Anatolian branched off ca. 4000 BCE and its internal divergence began already ca. 3000 BCE. Early on it must have moved some distance away from the related language(s), but it must not have been in Anatolia until a millennium later. 
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ind...FC130292CE

There is no conclusive linguistic evidence supporting either route (deosil or widdershins around the Black Sea), so we are free to search for hints from the genetic or archaeological data.

[Southpaw]

Why did the early linguists suggest Germanic branched off from Usatovo? Any particular reason for that, or it was just a wild guess/guesstimate?

Because doesn't look like the case at all, unless more Usatovo samples are in line.

Who early linguists?

I came accross David Anthony article from 2006: https://www.researchgate.net/publication...-_Germanic

But he is more of an anthropologist, but this hypothesis pops out here and there in google search but doesn't look convincing to me at all.

[RCO]

Northeastern Caspian and Lower Volga - Sampled.
Southeastern Caspian Sea - Totally unsampled
Armenia - Sampled
Northern Iran - Totally unsampled
Unsampled adjacent black holes, cherry picking science choosing only some regions to fit some agendas.
Science must investigate and explain what were the real limits and extension of the CHG-IRAN cline to the South and East before any conclusion.

[Riverman]

Why did the early linguists suggest Germanic branched off from Usatovo? Any particular reason for that, or it was just a wild guess/guesstimate?

Because doesn't look like the case at all, unless more Usatovo samples are in line.

Who early linguists?

I came accross David Anthony article from 2006: https://www.researchgate.net/publication...-_Germanic

But he is more of an anthropologist, but this hypothesis pops out here and there in google search but doesn't look convincing to me at all.

Both the question of where Usatovo was going and why some people might connect it with Pre-Germanic are connected to some degree. First off, the Cernavoda-Usatovo groups spread primarily in two directions: West into Transylvania and South into Bulgaria and possibly moving on to North West Anatolia as well.

One group of Cernavoda-Usatovo was mixing with both Tripolye-Cucuteni and GAC groups, and its this highly mixed group which moved into the Carpathian basin, presumably forming first Decea Muresului and then Cotofeni possibly.
They are therefore the direct ancestors of the Carpathian basin local element for the Bronze Age.

Transylvania had two significant EBA groups, Cotofeni and Zimnicea:

The discovery of inhumation rock tombs at Sânzieni (SZÉKELY 1980, 39–46) and Turia (SZÉKELY 1983b, 61–67), each with two Zimnicea–Mlăjet type askos vessels prove, that the development of communities from the Transition Period – represented by the first phase of the Coţofeni Culture – was disturbed by a Zimnicea type southern penetration (ROMAN 1986, 38). Therefore, the Early Bronze Age debuted much earlier in south/eastern Transylvania, marked by an earlier end of the last phase of the Coţofeni Culture, while in the central and western part of Transylvania there are attested the second and the third phases of this culture. The penetration of this Zimnicea–Mlăjet type shepherd communities had an economic ground, namely, the importance of this ore-rich zone from south-eastern Transylvania.

Now this is crucial, because it proves that the same kind of mix we find further East appeared in Transylvania, a mix of Usatovo, Triipolye-Cucuteni and GAC:

The discovery of a rock tomb with contracted skeleton burial at Sânmartin-Ciuc (Harghita county), (SZÉKELY 2002b, 40–44), informs us with new information about the Neo– Eneolithic period from south-eastern Transylvania. The inventory of this burial contained two bone applications found in the zone of the pelvis. Similar bone application was discovered in the second grave from Dolheştii Mari, dated to the Globular Amphora Culture (BERCIU 1960, 77– 79; DINU 1961, fig. 5, 6). This grave represents the first and the only proof of the penetration of the Globular Amphora Culture in the Ciuc Basin. These Volhyno–Podolian communities from the north-west penetrated to the territory of Moldavia after Cucuteni (B2) Culture together with the south-eastern Usatovo community forming the Horodiştea–Erbiceni Culture (DINU 1968). The tribes of the Globular Amphora Culture penetrated in the late phase of their evolution and occupied Moldavia up to Piatra Neamţ and down to Galaţi (ROMAN 1981, 38) and the settlement from Folteşti. These communities integrated into the transition process, forming the Zimnicea–Mlăjet–Sânzieni–Turia type settlements, and they may have contributed to the later formation of Schneckenberg Culture from south-east Transylvania and that of Scneckenberg B– Jigodin Culture from the Ciuc Basin (SZÉKELY 2000).

There are multiple GAC finds within the wider context of Cotofeni:

At Albiş, (Covasna County), in the garden of Bajka Ferenc a settlement belonging to the Coţofeni Culture was discovered, with two pottery fragments characteristic to the Globular Amphora Culture. A third discovery had been made between Sf. Gheorghe, (Covasna County) and Arcuş, (Covasna County). It was a Coţofeni Culture settlement, where the archaeological material consisted of a fragmentary vessel, belonging to the Globular Amphora Culture. Among other potsherds collected from the bank of the brook, there was a small cup with flat bottom and a little everted opening.

The Eastern GAC communities seem to have mixed with a WHG rich forager group, so they might be one of the spreaders of high WHG ancestry in various regional communities in and around the Carpathian Basin.

Here we have it, the three part fusion of Tripolye-Cucuteni (Gorodsk subgroup), Usatovo and GAC:

Based on these discoveries, as conclusion we can say the followings: in the territory of Suceava Plateau the communities of the Globular Amphora Cultures penetrated from northwest, while the Usatovo tribes arrived from south-east and pushed the Gorodsk type communities to the central and northern parts of Moldavia, which on the territory of northern Tripolje formed an individual culture. These communities penetrated into the territory of Moldavia after the B2 phase of Cucuteni Culture and gave birth to Horodiştea–Erbiceni Culture.

https://www.academia.edu/979382

I'm pretty confident that from these late Cucuteni groups, probably Gorodsk directly, the E1b1b carrier might have come from in the Usatovo context. Either that or from a nearby group of TCC or Petresti.

Already Gimbutas looked at these cultures as fusions of TCC, GAC and "Kurgan invaders":

Im Westen der Ukraine und in Bessarabien waren die neugebildeten kulturellen Gruppen (Usatovo, Gorodsk und Folteşti I) das Ergebnis der Kombination von Elementen der „Kurgan”-Tradition mit denen der lokalen Cucuteni-Tripolje-Kultur. Viel weiter westlich hatte die „Kurganbevölkerung” anscheinend auch auch die Entwicklung der Baden-Kultur geprägt (Gimbutas 1994, 49–88; Gimbutas 1997, 249–256).

The specific type of TCC, Gorodsk, being most often mentioned as influential and fusing with Usatovo steppe groups:

Im Nordwesten des Schwarzen Meeres unterhielten die neugebildetenen kulturellen Einheiten Cernavodă IIFolteşti II enge Kontakte mit dem Usatov-Milieu, während dieses seinerseits weiter ostwärts mit jenen des Typus Gorodsk und des frühen Jamnaja zusammenwirkte

https://www.researchgate.net/publication...0-_2500_BC

To sum it up, there were three important formations interacting with each other Tripolye-Cucuteni, Usatovo and Globular Amphora groups, From the West other groups influenced as well (Baden) and from the East too (new steppe groups, including Yamnaya).

The mixed element of the three West Ukrainian-Moldovan groups moved both West into Romania and South into Bulgaria. At least that's how I look at it right now.

Concerning Pre-Germanic, some might have speculated about Unetice being an important factor for Pre-Germanic. And Unetice had strong ties to the Carpathian basin. We see, beside Epi-Corded R1a and Bell Beaker R1b also some presumably GAC derived I2a in Unetice, and a distinctive connection, more so than for Bell Beakers and Corded Ware, to the Carpathian Basin.
Therefore the most likely link some might have seen should be, in my opinion, Unetice. A direct origin from Usatovo makes even less sense, even if some might have proposed it.

[Riverman]

An interesting detail is which groups used curved knives ("Krummmesser" in German) in the transitional period between the Copper Age and Early Bronze Age: Foltești II/Cernavoda, Horodiştea-Folteşti and Cotofeni. 
https://www.persee.fr/doc/valah_1584-185..._15_2_1142

A bit confusing is that many regional variants, even if related, get different designations, sometimes even different ones depending on the country and language of the author, something we see later too for the Bronze Age in particular, most pronounced between Hungary-Romania-Bulgaria in my opinion, with the respective national scholars doing to some degree all "their own thing" so to say.
Just like Sredny Stog needs now a new Ukrainian dialect term which just confuses everybody...quite superfluous now and then.

In any case, we see various parallels and connections between Western Ukraine-Moldova and Romania and Bulgaria. Clearly, with new steppe pushes from the East (Corded Ware proper, Yamnaya), the Usatovo-Cernavoda and other related Western steppe groups which had oftentimes already intermixed with TCC and GAC in particular were forced to move on, to the West and South primarily. Just like Corded Ware too moved primarily to the North West-West, those mixed groups moved South West, South and South East respectively, which brought them into Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkish Thrace, ultimately even Troy.

Concerning the ethnic affiliation of these people, some stated they were Pre-/Proto-Thracians (Google translate):

The cohabitation of the two ethnic elements, Horodiştea and Folteşti - Cernavoda Il, in the settlements of Sărăturilor and Mănăstirea of Erbiceni, as in other sites of the same type in Moldova, poses the problem of linguistic understanding. It is very possible34 that there will be a trial of formation and individualization of the grad people of the Thracians in this era and over a larger territory (the Balkan Peninsula, the center and the south-east of Europe), including the Coţofeni, Horodiştea-Erbiceni and recess Folteşti - Cernavoda II (fig. 4) well documented on the territory of Ia Romania and surrounding areas.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=w...JPhjQV23RP

Map for better understanding from another paper:




https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-..._349160952

Personally I favour Cotofeni as the Proto-Thracian culture and think that E-V13 started to grow in it as well. Mayaky kurgan is exactly where the three groups (TCC, GAC and Usatovo) met.

Paper on Usatovo/Usatovo-Gorodsk, which is clearly mixed steppe-TCC culture - in the paper its being mentioned when the samples were taken - 2014:

Mayaky individuals were sampled for184
molecular archaeology analyses at the Bioarchaeological Stores by one of the authors of the185
present study (AGN) and brought to the Reich Genetics Lab at Harvard University in 2014,186
under the permission from the Institute of Archeology and in accordance with all applicable187
laws of Ukraine governing the export of such archaeological materials.

Kurgan 7 burial 2 being dated to 4446-4340 BC (Table 1). That's the E1b1b carrier:

Burial group (kurgan) 7, Burial 2, male (25-30), 4446-4340 calBCE (5536±25 BP) (weighted mean
(Ward and Wilson, 1978): (5530±32 BP, OxA-22959); (5545±40 BP, PSUAMS-7793)]
Burial 2 of burial group (kurgan) 7 (Figure S6) was archaeologically assigned to the Usatove
culture. The grave was identified as a discoloration at the transition to the sandy loam 0.65 m
below the current surface. The bottom was at a depth of 1.25 m, the walls could be traced up
to 0.6 m. The oval burial pit was aligned from SW to NE and measured 1.4 × 1.15 m, it was
slightly longer at the bottom (1.55 × 1.15 m). The backfill was compact and consisted of three
layers: up to a depth of 1.05 m there was black earth with lenses of sandy loam, underneath
there was a 0.1 m thin layer of sandy loam, in the bottom area there was black earth with many
33
lime inclusions. The massive skeleton of a 25–30-year-old male laid crouched on the left side,
skull facing east and turned with the face up. The arms were bent and crossed in front of the
chest. The left hand was under the skull, the right by the facial bones. Spots of raspberry-
colored ocher were found on the skull and on the joints of the thighs and lower legs, and the
remains of organic material in the form of brown mold were also found on the lower legs.
Between the upper ribs were crumbs of dark red ocher. In front of the arms were two vessels.
One of these was a beige beaker (height 46 mm, rim diameter 45 mm, body diameter 72 mm,
base diameter 48 mm) with a squat body and low neck. Four horizontal rows of fine cord
encrusted with red ocher were applied around the neck. The body was decorated with incised
lines encrusted in white, in the upper area with a zigzag pattern forming a six-pointed star, with
three parallel grooves at regular intervals at the bottom. The clay was tempered with finely
crushed shells.
The other vessel (height 72 mm, rim diameter 114 mm, bottom diameter 38 mm) was a
heavily fragmented miniature bowl typical of the Usatove culture. It had an S-shaped profile,
was thin-walled, decorated with round cord indentations along the rim, with three rows of thin
cord indentations running underneath. The vessel was coated with red ocher on the inside. The
shard was gray-brown, the temper consisted of finely crushed shells and grains of sand

https://ekmair.ukma.edu.ua/server/api/co...05/content

[TanTin]

I am waiting to see the data for this new publication. Hope they will share it soon. It is my area, my region. I know most of the places , however the Southern - Western part of the Pontic region.
This is a really big work . We will discuss these results for long time for sure. In addition there is another publication for Indo-european.
These days we have some additional tools and methods so I don't have doubts: the publication is not the last word.. There will be more to say.

[Chad]

It was always most likely that the Lower Don area and Sredny Stog was the ultimate PIE source, with Yamnaya being just an offshot.
Looks like we're getting there based on sampling as well, finally...

Can anyone check the autosomal profile and haplogroup of the Usatovo related E1b1b individual?

I did G25-K12b for sample I3151 according cordonnier K12b in theytree
this admixture of this sample
Target: I3151
Distance: 5.5048% / 0.05504786
50.0 TUR_Barcin_N
21.0 WHG
16.4 Yamnaya_RUS_Samara
6.6 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2_I8728
3.0 Gambian
2.0 MAR_Taforalt
1.0 Jarawa
I tihnk maybe for admixtrue SSA is comme via Taforalt ? ( im not sure if this K12b is accurate for samples ancient or no )
Anway this cordonnier sample

I3151,0.085258,0.132347,0.035311,0.037767,0.061860,-0.002906,0.003623,0.017645,0.042760,0.052724,-0.003706,0.008235,-0.015196,-0.006185,0.000865,-0.005638,0.000757,-0.000818,-0.001159,0.001218,0.002660,0.000127,-0.003362,-0.001041,0.001479

Thank you. Seems that sample has rather bad coverage with lots of noise in the result.

I agree. Likely low-coverage garbage that can pass 10 models. That's too bad

I've really learned it's hard to trust results on up to at least, to a minimum, 200K SNPs. Under that, you get several more passing models than seem logical.

I am also pretty sure we are getting most of the story of the Ancient Near East wrong.

[Riverman]

I did G25-K12b for sample I3151 according cordonnier K12b in theytree
this admixture of this sample
Target: I3151
Distance: 5.5048% / 0.05504786
50.0 TUR_Barcin_N
21.0 WHG
16.4 Yamnaya_RUS_Samara
6.6 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2_I8728
3.0 Gambian
2.0 MAR_Taforalt
1.0 Jarawa
I tihnk maybe for admixtrue SSA is comme via Taforalt ? ( im not sure if this K12b is accurate for samples ancient or no )
Anway this cordonnier sample

Thank you. Seems that sample has rather bad coverage with lots of noise in the result.

I agree. Likely low-coverage garbage that can pass 10 models. That's too bad

I've really learned it's hard to trust results on up to at least, to a minimum, 200K SNPs. Under that, you get several more passing models than seem logical.

I am also pretty sure we are getting most of the story of the Ancient Near East wrong.

I hope its not that bad. If taking it face value, and ignoring the components which are most likely just noise, what's interesting is that the values are pretty similar to those of later Carpathian groups, with relatively high Neolithic, relatively high WHG and significant but rather low steppe. Groups like e.g. Monteoru and Encrusted Pottery go in that direction. Might be pure chance, but probably its not. In any case this individual is likely more TCC and/or GAC influenced and equals about one grandparent of steppe ancestors imho, if reading anything out of it.

[ph2ter]

Basic components with old samples (before we get the new samples from this paper):

[alanarchae]

Alanarchae:

That's likely true but there is a 1000-2000 year period between that moment and evidence or even inference of its presence where it survived - Anatolia..  The prop date of the proto language of the recorded Anatolian branched is 3000-2500BC r that is obvious not the same as the branching off even which was likely a bit earlier. The big question in my mind has always been this - how did Anatolian avoid the kind of contact that shifted all the other branches to later fully formed PIE by e3300BC if not a few cevturies earlier. It must have found an isolated location from the rest..  It had a long period that it could have been in an intermediate location. And those steppe groups couod really travel vast distances when you look at the waves

Yes, Anatolian branched off ca. 4000 BCE and its internal divergence began already ca. 3000 BCE. Early on it must have moved some distance away from the related language(s), but it must not have been in Anatolia until a millennium later. 
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ind...FC130292CE

There is no conclusive linguistic evidence supporting either route (deosil or widdershins around the Black Sea), so we are free to search for hints from the genetic or archaeological data.

? I did a double take when you used terms i’ve only ever heard Scots and Irish use!

[Capsian20]

I did G25-K12b for sample I3151 according cordonnier K12b in theytree
this admixture of this sample
Target: I3151
Distance: 5.5048% / 0.05504786
50.0 TUR_Barcin_N
21.0 WHG
16.4 Yamnaya_RUS_Samara
6.6 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2_I8728
3.0 Gambian
2.0 MAR_Taforalt
1.0 Jarawa
I tihnk maybe for admixtrue SSA is comme via Taforalt ? ( im not sure if this K12b is accurate for samples ancient or no )
Anway this cordonnier sample

Thank you. Seems that sample has rather bad coverage with lots of noise in the result.

I agree. Likely low-coverage garbage that can pass 10 models. That's too bad

I've really learned it's hard to trust results on up to at least, to a minimum, 200K SNPs. Under that, you get several more passing models than seem logical.

I am also pretty sure we are getting most of the story of the Ancient Near East wrong.

I wish in this study (raw data) this sample had good coverage

[ph2ter]

Judging from admixture maps.
Regarding the PIE people it seems to me that they were a blend of EHG, CHG and a small amount of EEF.
WHG people in Ukraine only later mixed with them. But because Ukraine Neolithic in lower Dnieper had significant proportion of WHG it is a question how EEF component ended east of Dnieper without any of WHG? Did EEF come to Don-Volga area via Caucasus or jumped over Dnieper WHG population without mixing with it?
Can someone explain to me.

[old europe]

Judging from admixture maps.
Regarding the PIE people it seems to me that they were a blend of EHG, CHG and a small amount of EEF.
WHG people in Ukraine only later mixed with them. But because Ukraine Neolithic in lower Dnieper had significant proportion of WHG it is a question how EEF component ended east of Dnieper without any of WHG? Did EEF come to Don-Volga area via Caucasus or jumped over Dnieper WHG population without mixing with it?
Can someone explain to me.

They think that farmer admixture came from south of the caucasus. Technically speaking we should label them ANF in PIE. Even if I remember that in the supplement they can not rule out the arrival of farmers dna from the west.

From Eurogenes:

" If they had used the published data of the sample from the Nalchik burial ground, then this sample would have replaced their complex Berezhnovka + Progress + ARM_Aknashen_N scheme"

[Capsian20]

It data available this study ?